


VWOOP! (every time a bell rings a tiefling gets their wings)

by Mikkeneko



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Wings, Breakups, Caduceus and Molly at the same time because I said so, Caleb is pining, Casual Sex, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Gift Exchange, Happy Ending, M/M, Makeups, Molly is in denial, Open Relationships, Widomauk Server, Wingfic, minor Beau/Jester, minor Molly/other, only tieflings get soulmates, slightly under-negotiated open relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22273072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: Molly's looking for a lot of things in his life -- a good time, a chance to make the world a better place, friends and family -- but more than anything else he's looking for his soulmate. He travels the world in hopes of meeting the one promised person whose name will bring out the wings that every tiefling has buried in their soul.But, while he's waiting, he might as well find other ways to pass the time...
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 33
Kudos: 263
Collections: Mikke's Gift Fics, Widomauk Winter Gift Exchange 2020





	VWOOP! (every time a bell rings a tiefling gets their wings)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [very_mhairi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/very_mhairi/gifts).



> Written for the Widomauk Server winter gift exchange. This gift was meant for [very-mhairi,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/very_mhairi/pseuds/very_mhairi) who requested angst and wings, and I hope this fic manages to deliver some amount of both.
> 
> There's some speculation implicit in the prompt about how a True Name works, in a magical/soul/destiny sort of way, and how that intersects with one's right to choose one's own name. Skip to the end notes for a more detailed breakdown of why I made the choices I did.

So here's the thing about Tieflings --

(and aasimar too, but that need not concern us at this juncture --)

\-- they are simply _steeped_ in soul-stuff. Beings born mortal, but for the wash of the supernatural into the waking world that reshapes flesh around a beating crystalline core of the arcane. Tieflings are by their very nature a people apart, steeped in the profane and the divine, inextricably wrapped up in and around strands of fate and destiny, oaths and debts and pacts through time, before birth and beyond death.

There are things about tieflings and their cousins the aasimar that defy mortal expectations, that stretch the boundaries of understanding. _Why_ are the fiend-touched the way they are, many wizards and academics have sought and failed to answer. The best they can do is to catalogue each symptom of the inexplicable as it comes.

Tieflings have strange colors of skin, from the jeweled to the metallic. Tieflings have curving horns, and eyes so strange that they should not work in daylight (and yet they do.) Tieflings have an innate grasp of a language so uncanny it burns in the mouths of most other peoples.

And tieflings have soulmates.

How these soulmates are determined, no one knows -- some strange compatibility of arcane vibrations, perhaps, or sly matchmaking done on the planes beyond the divine gate. Tieflings come into the world with a soulmate that they may never find, may never meet, a destiny written into their bones that only some are serendipitous enough to fulfill.

But for those fortunate enough to find their soulmates, the universe leaves them no doubt, no plausible deniability. The very first time that a tiefling hears their soulmate say their name is the very first time that their wings burst forth from their back.

* * *

So the stories go. Stories that Mollymauk Tealeaf, still new, still growing into the world and his place in it, hangs on breathlessly as they pour from the lips of Desmond, of Ornna, of Mona and Yuli. He knows so little of the world. He knows so little of himself. Every story, every fable and fairy tale and legend is another piece to fix against the gaping emptiness of the sky.

He, Mollymauk Tealeaf, may not have a name or a family or a past or all the other things that everyone else got to have (even if they don't have them now.) But he gets to have a soulmate. Someone, somewhere out there in the world is meant for him -- just for him. And if he travels far enough, long enough, if he meets and talks to and laughs with enough people, then someday he'll meet his soulmate and he'll know.

And what reason would he have to doubt it? He has Yasha, too. Yasha isn't like him, but she's different from the others in the same way that he's different. She's shown him her wings, told him a little -- just a little -- of the first day they sprouted. The first day that the girl from the neighboring tribe greeted her when they met on a hunt, and snow-white wings erupted from her starstruck astonishment.

She's never talked about the day they withered and darkened, but the other stories Molly's heard -- the ones that Mona and Yuli tell when Yasha's _not_ around to hear him -- tell him enough to fill in the rest of the story. That for an aasimar (or a tiefling) to lose their soulmate is to lose part of themselves, to pine and fade away into shadow, their wings slowly darkening to black. That worried Molly for weeks after he heard it and he watched Yasha closely, surreptitiously, looking for a hint of transparency around her outline.

But she stays the same, safe solid Yasha, quiet and sad but present and mindful too. Molly hopes that he helps. She's not his soulmate (he'd know,) and he's not hers (she knows.) But he's happy to be here with her, all the same.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Molly loves traveling with the circus. He loves his family -- he doesn't always _get along_ with his family, but that's not a requirement, now is it? -- but he loves traveling more. Every week a new town, a new crop of faces. Surely one of them must be his match. Nothing yet, but he's willing to keep trying.

They travel to Trostenwald. They meet a group of misfits, one of them another tiefling like himself. There's an instant bond there, two of a kind -- soul-steeped, magic-marked -- the same resonance he feels with Yasha. There's a charming half-orc, tall-dark-and-handsome the way he likes them, smooth-talking enough that he thinks he'd like to get to know him. For the two of them he's willing to put up with the third, even if the blue-clad woman seems like a bit more of a bully than he likes. She's interesting at least -- might be fun to torment.

Oh, and two more over in the corner -- a grubby human vagrant the type he's passed on every corner in the Empire, and a strange and creepy little girl with a stolen mask and lamplight eyes. Weird -- and not necessarily the fun kind of weird -- but Molly's always up for new experiences. New faces, new voices, new names. He'll take them all, sell them a yarn and a tarot reading and tickets to the show tonight. The tiefling girl -- _Jester --_ asks for a reading and he gives one happily, careful to draw cards that speak of mystery and discovery.

He listens closely as each of them gives their names, but feels nothing uncanny; no bells ring in his head, no tingling in his shoulderblades to signify the arrival of wings. He pushes past the momentary pang of disappointment: still plenty of people out there to meet.

On the way out of the inn he slows his pace a moment and reaches into the pocket where his deck is, catching two cards and pulling them for himself. It's an effort not to let his fingers automatically seek out the marks and notches he knows so well, but sometimes he wants to hear what the cards really have to say.

Three of Wands. The Chariot, upright. Travel, expansion and new horizons paired with surety and success. You will find what you need if you keep traveling your current course. Molly interprets this as saying that his soulmate is still out there somewhere, still ahead, and he will find them sometime soon.

With a spring in his step he heads back to the circus tent.

* * *

Shit goes sideways.

Shit goes sideways in ways that even Molly, for all his walking cloud of chaos and impulsiveness, could never see coming -- sideways to an extent that he's never in his short life weathered before. Well, he's weathered it now.

All in all, he reasons from the back of the Mighty Nein's cart, it could be worse. He still has Yasha, his charm; he has this new crowd of weirdoes to be with, to play and fight and look after each other. He's still traveling, still seeing the world and meeting new people, and that was what he wanted, right? That's what mattered. He's still on the right course, somehow. He'll make this work, somehow.

He thinks about the two cards he pulled before the performance, and does his best to believe in that. Yeah, this'll turn out okay.

Assuming they don't all get themselves killed two months down the road, anyway.

* * *

They don't die.

(Even if it was a very close thing.

Even if a week later in Zadash, in the comfort of the Song and Supper Inn with a hot meal in his stomach and tankard in his hand, he still feels the chills go up his spine at how close it was. At the terror of having their friends stolen out from under their noses, the disaster that was their failed ambush along the road -- he and Beau had both been inches from death, he knew. Lorenzo had walked away from both of them bleeding out on the road and if not for the Periapt, if not for Nott's quick hands and Caleb's burning ones either or both of them might have _died,_ and Nott and Caleb would have been left alone, and Fjord and Jester and Yasha would have -- )

But it didn't happen, and Molly's always made a policy of not dwelling on _what ifs._ They're all alive, safe and free and together once more, back in Zadash and flush with cash from the Gentleman's payout. If not for Cree -- one lingering dark cloud on his horizon -- the whole world would be his oyster right now.

He'd not gone back to the Evening Nip this time, and the rest of the Mighty Nein had told Cree he'd died at the Iron Shepherds' hands. There is nothing better in the world, in Molly's opinion, than friends who will lie for you.

Jester is in the middle of the room dancing, her body swaying with enthusiastic abandon in its new freedom. "It is an act," Caleb mutters, and maybe he's right, but does it really matter? The point of being free is that you can _choose_ , and if Jester is choosing to be happy instead of sad, then more power to her.

Molly has choices, too. He takes a draw on his tankard and watches his companions through the warm haze the alcohol gives him. They're both very handsome men, he thinks, in very different ways; Fjord has the more classical features but Caleb has a presence that has only now started to come out from the disguising veil of dirt and self-effacement he spent so long hiding in. Everyone in this group is entirely too shaggable, a problem that Molly is honestly happy to have.

Now that the danger is past and they're all together again, the released tension feels like a snapped band in Molly's chest. He's got an itch. He's full of restless energy and he knows _exactly_ how he wants to spend it. Plus Beau is off fucking that dwarf girl; not Molly's type, but he can't let her lord it over him that she has better game than him. He wants to get laid. He wants to find someone pretty and enthusiastic and willing, and if he's trying to keep a low profile, he shouldn't go looking too far abroad. 

Fjord, or Caleb? Either would be a treat, but it's probably too early to try to negotiate _both._ Maybe he should flip a coin. 

He takes his heels off the table and sits forward, letting the chair's legs and his own hit the floor. His coat unfolds from the casual drape over the back of the chair and his tarot deck nearly slips from the pocket; he has to grab at them to keep them from spilling all over the floor. One comes free in his hands, and he looks at it and can't keep from laughing out loud.

The hermit, reversed. "Sure," he tells the card in his hand, and slips it back into the deck with the others. "I'll take that as a sign, why not?"

Molly pushes back from the table and to his feet in one fluid movement, just tipsy enough that every limb feels loose and languid and comfortable. He feels happy and good, and he wants to feel happy and good with someone else, and why not Caleb? Why not? 

He lets himself down in the chair next to Caleb, loose-limbed and deliberately clumsy, brushing his leg against Caleb's and letting his arm drop over Caleb's shoulder as he settles in. Caleb's eyes flick up towards him and away in little jumps, as though he doesn't want to look but can't stop himself. Molly smirks and returns the favor, giving Caleb a good once-over with this new perspective in mind.

Molly is a performer and he knows social performance when he sees it, even unusual kinds. Caleb had gone out of his way to make as unpleasant a first impression as possible, wearing grunge and filth like a costume to play the part of a nobody. Once you know him well to look past that mask, his features begin to come forth through the grime and you realize he's actually _quite_ handsome.

And the bath helped too, he thinks. The baths he took between then and now help _quite_ a lot. He still has a strong scent -- not that they don't all stink after a few days on the road -- but Molly's grown familiar with it, earthy and pungent and a little bit scorched, comfortable and safe. He's even come to like it, a little. He thinks he could come to like it a lot.

Caleb clears his throat -- a staticky, awkward sound -- and Molly realizes his cheeks have grown flushed. He looks uncomfortable with Molly's intense scrutiny and Molly takes pity, breaking off the once-over and nodding back to the tiefling at the center of the room.

"She'll be all right," Molly says reassuringly. "They all will. She just needs some time to realize she's safe again, and to make good memories to crowd out the bad. The bad will fade in time. It always does."

"And what about you, Mister Mollymauk?" Caleb says in that stilted way he has when he's trying to take refuge in the formality of a script that doesn't really apply to the conversation. "You did not go through the same, uh, ordeal as the others, but -- you nearly died."

Molly shrugs. " _Nearly_ only counts in horseshoes and fireballs," he says, quoting one of Ornna's old sayings. "I'm alive. I'm here. Not that I'd say no to making some good memories of my own, mind you." 

He follows that up with a salacious grin and a wink, and is rewarded by Caleb's flush growing darker. "Ja?" Caleb has to clear his throat again. "So, what is stopping you?"

"It takes two to tango, you know," Molly says. He shifts his position, moving in a little closer to Caleb's personal space.

"Mh... I would not know," Caleb says, his tone even. "I know many dances, but not the tango."

Not for the first time Mollymauk wishes Caleb weren't so damn hard to read. He's good at tone, at body language, but Caleb is so underreacting that Molly can't tell if he's playing dumb or genuinely missing the innuendo. He could literally mean that he doesn't know the dance -- or does he mean that he's inexperienced at sex? At his age, surely not -- would he just _announce_ it like that?! Maybe he really does mean the dance. His tone and expression are flat, and Molly isn't sure if he's trying to conceal something or that's just his resting face. 

Caleb _can_ emote when he wants to, Molly's seen him do it. He's actually quite the accomplished actor -- when he wants to be seen, every eye in the place is drawn towards him. Molly himself isn't immune to the strange charm Caleb exerts when he wants something -- but as soon as he's got what he wants, he turns it off like a lamp.

Maybe Caleb's just not interested. That's a possibility Molly has to consider -- but he also saw the flash of heat in Caleb's eyes when he sat down, felt the tremble in his arm when he brushed it with his own. Maybe Caleb just isn't certain of his welcome. He's a scholar and they tend to live in their heads a lot, from what Molly's seen. Maybe all Caleb needs is an engraved invitation.

So he drops some of the coyness and leans forward to put himself directly into Caleb's line of sight. Folds his arms on the table and meets Caleb's eyes. "I could teach you," he says. "We could start right now, if you like. In fact, the sooner the better."

Caleb blinks rapidly, and once again Molly has a chance to marvel at how blue his eyes are. The pretty flush spreads further up his cheeks, and his voice cracks when he tries to speak again. "Mollymauk. Are you propositioning me?"

Molly laughs. "I'm surprised it took this long. For a man as brilliant as you, you're kind of slow to pick up on cues."

Caleb shakes his head. "Do you usually woo your prospective bed partners by insulting them?"

Molly gives him a cheeky grin. "Depends, is it working?"

Caleb hesitates. Not the _yes_ Molly was hoping for, but not the _no_ that would send him packing. Gears whir behind Caleb's eyes and he can tell that Caleb is thinking hard, but not _what._

There's a lot Molly can intuit about Caleb's present, but not his past or his future -- he'd need the cards for that, and a bit of spin from Fate. He doesn't know what Caleb is running from, or towards, or what's haunting him -- but he can tell that Caleb has a lot on his shoulders. Caleb's had a hard time. Molly needs to make this easy.

"Seriously though, how about it?" Molly dials back a bit, eases up on the smoldering intensity and makes his smile more friendly, less predatory. "No strings attached. Just a bit of fun, me and you. It wouldn't be anything more than two people blowing off steam together and having a grand time in the process."

"...All right," Caleb gives in, and Molly suppresses an internal cheer. His tail lashes with excitement despite the relaxed smile he keeps on his face. "As long as, eh, you do not change your mind in the middle and call on the others to kick me out of your bedroom."

Is that what Caleb's worried about? That Molly will turn on him, use this against him? Is that what his previous lovers had done? His heart gives a sympathetic little kick he didn't expect, and his next words are entirely sincere. "By the light of the moon, you have my word," he says, making a little trace of the Moonweaver's symbol in front of his chest. "I won't let this change anything between us, or interfere with the group in any way."

Caleb relaxes, and Molly congratulates himself on his insight. "Lead on, then," Caleb says, and Molly does.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Caleb was wrong, Mollymauk thinks. He _does_ know how to tango.

  
  


* * *

  
  


That's the first time, in a narrow inn bed in the at the Song and Supper, with the band playing under their feet and the wind scraping the tiles overhead. There's no fanfare, no heavenly choir, the earth doesn't move (well, the floor does a little, he'll have to let the innkeeper know about that loose board.) There's nothing uncanny or magical about it at all.

But it's good. It's fun. More fun than Molly was expecting if he was being completely honest; he was half expecting to have to teach Caleb what his dick was for. But once past his initial reserve (and out of that ridiculous holster of his,) Caleb showed a surprising confidence.

Taken in all it's been a _very_ good experience, and Molly congratulates himself on his good choice.

  
  


* * *

  
  


It's the first time, but it's not the last time.

They don't share a bed every night; most nights there isn't even a bed _to_ share, and when they're on the road -- all piled up in Caleb's new magic bubble like puppies -- there's not even enough elbow room to maneuver, let alone privacy. (Not that he would necessarily let a little thing like shame stop him, but Nott would probably kill him if he tried to debauch her wizard six inches from her little green nose.) 

But they don't spend every night out in the open either. On the road from Zadash to Nicodranas there are many little towns, many inns and wayposts where they can at least get under a roof for a night. Many narrow rooms and dark corners and back-of-buildings where he can pull Caleb for a little _alone time,_ and Caleb always lets himself be pulled. Every time there's a little look of astonishment on his face, a surprised gasp on his lips, like he didn't expect that Molly would choose him again.

Which is ridiculous. It was fun to start, so why not continue? It's not like Molly's overwhelmed with choices in these tiny little hamlets. If he were being honest with himself, this is the first time he's ever _had_ a regular bed partner -- that he can remember. Ornna enforced a very strict no-fooling-around policy with the other members of the carnival, not that any of them had been available or interested anyway. (Too many of them had known him when he was new, had helped feed him and wipe his face like a baby before he could take care of himself and that's not -- that's not really the dynamic he wants to take back into the bedroom.) Having a steady partner that he can choose again and again, one who can learn his reactions and sweet spots and preferences even as he learns theirs, making it better every time -- it's nice. It's nice to wake up to Caleb's face in the morning, whether they slept in the same bed or one or both of them slipped off to find less cramped bedding in the night. Even then, he knows he can look over the table or the campfire and see Caleb's face there. It's nice.

And then they come to Nicodranas, and the sea.

The sea!

It's bigger than anything Molly has ever seen, bigger than anything he thought _possible._ It feels somehow expansive and confining all at once -- the land ends here, petering out in whitecapped waves, but the sea itself goes on forever. There's more lands on the other side, he's heard, across a distance so vast that even on a ship running fast as a horse can gallop it would take _weeks_ to get to the other side. Molly can't comprehend that distance, that size. It makes his brain hurt trying.

But _oh,_ it is glorious.

Nicodranas on the sea is almost as vast and glorious as the sea itself. Molly knows that as cities goes it's not the biggest -- not even as big as Zadash -- but the wharfs and quays that extend out on the water make it seem like the sea and all its expanse is part of the city. It's humming with activity, teeming with travelers so colorful and varied that even the Mighty Nein don't stand out. If cities could have souls Molly would want _this_ one to be his soulmate; he's in love.

(And for the first time he really has a visual to put to the old phrase, "always more fish in the sea.")

The workers at the Lavish Chateau -- men, women, and some who don't fit categories at all -- are so beautiful. Not just painted and primped and adorned in shimmering clothing but they look artful, comfortable, confident and relaxed in their own bodies as they drape themselves around tables or on divans. They murmur quietly among themselves as they look over at the Mighty Nein and they share little smiles, and their expressions are so _knowing._

Molly wants to know what they know. Molly wants to know it _all._

And the most beautiful of them all is the Ruby of the Sea. 

(She's _way_ out of his league but that doesn't stop him from flirting shamelessly with her as Jester introduces them -- if only to tease Beau, who is likely to blow an artery if she tries any harder to be suave.)

It's a loud and rowdy evening at the Lavish Chateau: the eight of them packed around the table, mismatched and out of place among the elegant furniture. They're used to it, and the strange looks they attract from the other patrons is alleviated by the Ruby's obvious acceptance of them. 

Jester is overjoyed at being in a house with her mother again, and Molly can't blame her. She bounces between showing off her amazing mother to her friends, and showing off her eccentric friends to her amazing mother. The last thing Molly wants to do is intrude on that. But as the evening wears on there's a lull -- as Marion goes off to prepare for her next performance, as the rest of the Nein disperse themselves to get food, drinks, or a moment of quiet to collect their thoughts -- where they're alone at the table.

"So, Jester," Molly says casually, leaning back in his tail and idly spinning his mostly-empty glass. "The Ruby of the Sea is as lovely as all of the tales told about her, and your home is truly an amazing place."

Jester beams. " _Isn't_ it, though?" she exclaims. "I'm so glad I got to come back, for a while I wasn't sure I'd ever see this place again!"

"But you did," Molly says. "Have you considered whether you want to stay here?"

Jester's nose wrinkles. "You mean tonight? Of course. Where else would we stay?"

"No, I mean, stay here after tonight. Make this a permanent homecoming."

"Oh! No. I mean, I don't think so." Jester blinks wide violet eyes. "Lord Sharpe doesn't know I'm here, or Mama would be in awful trouble. It's one thing to visit, but it wouldn't be _home_ if I have to re-cast Disguise Self every hour!"

"Certainly, my dear, but these are all problems that have solutions," Molly points out. It's not that he _wants_ to lose Jester, to have her stay behind... but surely she deserves what _she_ wants. "We could -- _take care_ of Lord Sharp, one way or another. Ensure he doesn't bother you again. Or if not that, perhaps some kind of permanent disguise..."

Molly's voice trails off; Jester is shaking her head. "No, I don't think that's what I want," she says thoughtfully. "I mean I _love_ seeing Mama again, and I hope we can come back again and again, but -- I'm having so much fun traveling with all of you! I wouldn't be able to stand just staying home and doing nothing all day. 

"Everything I want is still out _there,_ " Jester says, gesturing broadly towards the high windows of the Chateau. "There are still so many people who have never even heard of the Traveler! I have to spread the word. And I still want to find my dad, and so many other cool and funny people I haven't met yet. My _soulmate_ is still out there somewhere, Molly! I want to keep traveling till I find them!"

Molly has to smile wryly, because yeah, that's a little _too_ familiar. "I know what you mean," he agrees. "I feel the same way."

"You do?" Jester cocks her head to the side, looking at him thoughtfully. "I didn't think you cared about the soulmate thing."

That stings, but Molly manages to conceal it in his returning frown. "Why, whatever makes you think I didn't?" he says, a little too sharply.

Jester shrugs. "Wellll... you don't seem to care _who_ you do the _hr-hr-hr_ with," she says. "And you started sleeping with Caleb even though he's not your soulmate, so it didn't seem like it really, you know, mattered to you."

"That doesn't mean I don't care!" Molly retorts. "It's not like I have a sell-by date, you know. Besides, it's all just physical. Just for fun. Nothing I can't happily say good-bye to when I do meet my soulmate."

"Can you really?" Jester says in that same skeptical tone.

"Can I really what?" Molly snaps back. He loves Jester, but her innocent insensitivity really gets under his skin sometimes and the smug, knowing expression on her face is just driving it further.

"You and Caleb," Jester says, and Molly returns her a blank look. "Do you _really_ expect me to believe that there's nothing between you except friends-with-benefits?"

"We're friends, the benefit is fucking, what other definition is there?" Molly tosses off carelessly. "Come on, darling, don't tell me you're reading more into it than that."

"Maybe that's how it _started,_ " Jester says knowingly. She leans in, tail swaying behind her, and waggles her eyebrows outrageously. "But don't you think mayybe in the meantime you might have developed some _feeeelings?"_

"You know what, I really don't see how it's any of your business," he declares, setting the cup firmly down on the table with a _clink._

Just about then Caleb reappears; Frumpkin is back on his shoulders and some of the tense lines have smoothed away from his face, so Molly gauges that a few minutes of peace and quiet have destressed him the desired amount. He knows Caleb well enough by now to know how crowds wear on him, and he turns a winning smile on his -- on his _friend,_ occasionally with benefits, as Caleb walks back up to the table. "There you are darling, solitude tanks all topped up?" he asks casually. "Ready for another plunge into the crowd?"

"Um, maybe," Caleb says, still looking uncomfortable. "I ahh, I was actually coming in to see if you were ready to head upstairs soon."

Molly hummed in thought. "Tempting, but I couldn't possibly miss the Ruby's last number."

"Oh, um, right," Caleb says, glancing over at Jester before he pulls out a chair and reseats himself. "I'll stay for that, of course."

Molly feels a twinge of foreboding and a sudden, wild impulsive surge. And who is he to deny his impulses? He straightens up and clears his throat. "Actually, you know what, I was thinking I'd find other company tonight." He glances over at the wizard. "If that's fine with you, Caleb?"

"I -- wh --" Caleb seems taken aback. "By other company, do you mean..."

Caleb looks lost, and Molly is a little surprised that he's not blushing. Poor Caleb, even after traveling with them all this time he's still so prudish about things. The last time Molly spent an evening with hired company Caleb had locked himself in a room with Beau and Nott all evening. "Look around!" Molly waves a hand to encompass the opulent room, the lighting perfectly pitched to make the most of the decorations, to cast a tint of mystique over the residents. 

"Jester's mother has exquisite taste in everything, including the beauties who work at her establishment. When are we going to have an opportunity like this again? I was thinking I would get to know some of the people here, the Ruby's own coworkers..." He smirks, just in case his meaning is unclear. "...and thinking that they could get to know me."

"I... I see," Caleb says at last, his voice a little strangled with embarrassment. "Of course. If that's -- what you want, Mollymauk." He hesitates, then forges on: "I ahh, I hope you do not ever feel like -- like I am the sort of man who would -- who would hold you back or try to control you."

"Thanks, Caleb, you're a doll," Molly says, feeling touched despite himself. He knocks back the rest of his drink and stands, feeling a warm glow pass over him from head to foot. "Well. I am your god, long may I reign, time to go spread the gospel!"

From behind him he hears Jester say "Caleb...?" with an uncharacteristic hesitation in her voice. Well, Caleb will stay around for a little while at least, so Molly doesn't have to worry about abandoning her without any company for the rest of the evening.

He skips away from the table with feeling of fresh relief bubbling in his chest. Jester doesn't know what she's talking about; there's nothing between him and Caleb except light-hearted fun. If there were _feelings_ like Jester thought then Caleb would have said something just now, objected to Molly going off to find another partner. He didn't, ergo there aren't, ergo Molly is still safe. He's not committed. He can keep on spending time with Caleb without any need to worry about what will happen when his soulmate finally appears.

No need to worry at all.

  
  


* * *

  
  


When he comes down to breakfast the next day Caleb is there already, and Molly plops down in the seat beside him with a "Pass the beans -- thank you, darling" that gets a nod and a bowl of beans in response. No awkwardness at all, Molly is delighted to see. Sure Caleb isn't meeting his eyes, but then he doesn't do eye contact most of the time anyway. That's just a Caleb thing. Along with all his other eccentricities, it's what makes him so endearingly himself.

Over breakfast -- savory beans and sweet beans, sticky cinnamon rolls, eggs and toast, bacon and sausage and a deep dish of mushrooms, Molly can't see why Jester wouldn't want to stay here if it meant she could eat breakfast like this _every day --_ the Nein discuss their next move. 

The top of their agenda is definitely going to be tracking down this Marius person, following up on the lead Beau got from her little mail fraud expedition. But the Ruby of the Sea also has a favor of her own to ask of them: to discourage a man named Algar, who has been harassing her just at the very boundary of what is legally acceptable. Since every one of the Nein has already half fallen in love with Jester's mother, they endorse this plan with unanimous enthusiasm.

So much so that Marion has to beg them to tone down the murder-glee a little bit. "We'll do our best to keep things in check," Fjord assures her, since at least someone in this party has to be the voice of reason. "We'll start by just talking to him, only escalate things if he escalates first."

"I would appreciate that restraint," the Ruby murmurs. "As much trouble as this has been, I do think he truly believes he is acting out of love."

"Well, that's his problem, isn't it?" Molly puts in. He stretches back in his chair, comfortably full of ham and beans. "Just because one person is in love, doesn't mean the other person is _obliged_ to return it! Feelings can't be forced."

"I think that pretending to feel something you don't, just because you feel _sorry_ for them, would be the worst possible outcome," Caleb muses quietly.

"It's decided then," Fjord says firmly. "We'll have a little talk with Algar, and with Marius, and we'll all be on our best behavior." Heads nod and murmurs of agreement from all around.

* * *

Two days later, they're pirates.

* * *

Life on the Mist -- Molly checks himself, the _Mistake --_ has its hazards. He missed the first twelve hours or so of travel from being ferociously seasick, never having ridden in anything larger than a cart before in his life. Caduceus gave him some kind of tea, he slept for half a day, and now he feels fine.

The constant rocking motion of the waves makes it hard to do things -- playing dice, eating and drinking, sewing new patterns into his coat -- until you get accustomed to them. The ship is narrow, the hallways and compartments are cramped, there's hardly room to really stretch out let alone do any vigorous athletics. It's going to be a boring, restless couple of weeks until they get where they're going.

But that's all just details. Molly hasn't gotten over the fact that they're _pirates_ now, they are living out one of Gustav's rollicking adventure tales (in the play, a kracken shows up; he's not sure whether to hope for that or not.) He's acquired a new hat with a pair of sharp white feathers, and a brightly colored vest to wear when the glaring sun makes it too hot for his coat. He's having the time of his life playing dice and telling stories with the crew, hanging over the rail to watch new and interesting beasties passing under the ships, hoisting his way through the rigging up to the crow's nest in case he wants an even _bigger_ view of the ocean.

The _Mistake_ is crowded with all of them aboard. Fjord gets the captain's cabin to himself, but the rest of them have to double up to save space. 

He tells this to Caleb very earnestly over a dinner of hardtack and smoked fish, playing up what a _sacrifice_ it will be -- having to cuddle up _very_ close in the bunk every night. "But we'll do what we must for the good of the group," he intones with a pious sigh. "Hope you don't mind _too_ much."

Caleb considers it carefully. "Mm, _ja,_ I suppose you are right," he concludes. "Well, Nott and I will find a way to squeeze in, I'm sure."

"No -- I meant that you and _I_ would --" Molly sputters, called out on his bluff, and Caleb _laughs,_ the bastard. Molly would be more annoyed if Caleb's laughter wasn't still so rare. His eyes crinkle up, his cheeks rise in apples and he smiles as he takes another bite of bread.

"I took your meaning," he says, giving Molly's hand a pat. "If it helps at all, Nott has found her own true love in the gunnery level of the ship, and declares that she will be sleeping there for the time being."

Molly considers this. "She's not going to object, is she? To you and me sharing a bunk?" He's fond of the little goblin, but he's seen some pretty over-the-top reactions from her where Caleb is concerned, and really doesn't want to have to be on the lookout for a knife in the dark.

Caleb shrugs. "Nott already knows about us," he says.

"She does?"

"Of course," Caleb says. "She is very observant, and we are not, um, subtle."

Molly's face scrunches a little, considering this. "Isn't she a little young to know about this sort of thing?"

"Honestly I am not entirely sure how old she is," Caleb admits. "But she is old enough to know her own mind. I do not think she will intrude."

"Ah. Good," Molly says, unutterably relieved. He decides to try to tease Caleb a little in return. "The bed is crowded enough with three -- you, me, and Frumpkin..." He trails off, squinting a little as he realizes what's missing from the usual picture of Caleb. "Hang on, where is the furry little bastard?"

"Oh. I, ah," and here Caleb looks embarrassed, "He is staying with Beauregard for... a little while. She was so disappointed over losing Professor Thaddeus, you see; I thought it might lift her spirits a bit."

And Molly can't do anything except stare at Caleb, utterly gobsmacked. Because he _knows_ just how much Frumpkin means to Caleb, how much he relies on his familiar; to soothe him when he's upset, to ground him in tense or unfamiliar situations, to be his emotional touchstone. Caleb relies on Frumpkin more heavily than anyone else, even Nott, and Caleb... gave Frumpkin away?

Even for just a little while, it's a gesture of incredible generosity, of profound kindness -- that Caleb wanted to impart to Beau some of the same comfort he takes from his own pet. It's mind-boggling how Caleb can go around with an attitude of selfishness, of callousness, and then with a smile and a few casual words tears down that whole facade.

Caleb is... Caleb is like a house that's had a falling star crash down through its roof, leaving the walls standing around a glassy, burnt-out shell that was once a home. Caleb has been hollowed out by whatever terrible thing ate up his life, and yet -- and yet. There are still bits and pieces sifted among the wreckage -- like fragments of furniture and pieces of pictures -- that still outline the shape of the man he must have been.

His deadpan, surprisingly wicked sense of humor. His love of all things feline, the way he goes googly when presented with any cat at all, not just Frumpkin. The joy that fills his face when he gets his hands on a new book, the hunger and breathless awe that lights his eyes when he sees new magic. The effortless way he switches on and off that magnetic _presence._ The aching, vulnerable gentleness when he looks at his friends: at Nott, at Jester, at Beauregard. At Molly himself, when Molly pretends not to look.

There was something there once, something so, so magnificent and precious, and the more Molly gets to know him the more Molly wishes he could have seen it whole. Wonders if there's any way to build it back up again.

He takes such effort to efface himself, to appear as no one and nothing, but when you get behind the mask there's so much _there._ It's such a biting contrast to Molly, who puts everything he is right on his face as big as he can, and hopes that people don't get too close. Who brays laughter and talks fast and loud and lives in fear that if anyone looks too closely, they'll see that he's nothing inside at all.

That night he squeezes into the little bunk beside Caleb; they have to brace each other against the walls of the narrow room to keep from rolling back and forth with the rocking of the ship. Having sex on a moving ship is a novel experience, a new set of challenges; they slip and swear and giggle their way through it and somehow it's the best sex Molly has ever had.

  
  


* * *

  
  


They don't spend every night together. Even at sea there are watches to keep, there are times when Nott turfs him out to spend the evening with Caleb and Molly winds up in the crow's nest, lying back with his hands behind his head, closer than he thought he'd ever get to the stars. Out here on the ocean with nothing on the horizon to compare them with the moons look bigger and brighter than ever, shining a hundred fractal little jewels on the dark sea around, and Molly can't think of any country -- any town, any city, any kingdom -- where he'd rather be.

He still hopes to meet his soulmate someday. They're out there _somewhere,_ and the more he travels to every corner of the world the better his chances of finding them. He still dreams of them in the dark watches of the night -- but a little more every night, the shadowy blurred figure of his soulmate comes to him with red hair and too-wise blue eyes.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Things get bad at Darktow.

Honestly they started going sour well before then, the moment their paths crossed with Avantica. Sure, the elven pirate is a looker, but her ambitions and her barely-tamed violence cast a pall over everyone on the ship. Sends cracks down the middle of their family that threaten to divide them. Fjord is distant, Jester is miserable; Caduceus is painfully lost and confused by the whole situation and Nott seems preoccupied by the troubling news from Felderwin.

Fjord and Avantica are engaging in the most profoundly uncomfortable game of straight chicken Molly has ever had the misfortune to witness and Caleb, for some Gods-unknown reason, is _encouraging_ him in this.

It sparks off their worst argument since the confrontation over the money in the sewers. Back then Caleb barely put up a fight but now -- now he argues back in low clipped tones with drawn-in shoulders and a hunched neck that just radiate aggravation. Like he's so obviously in the right that he's annoyed that he even has to bother explaining himself, like Molly is a naive child, like Molly is _stupid._

It's the first time Caleb has ever spoken to him like this, and Molly decides right away that it's his new least favorite thing in existence.

"And I'm telling you this is a _bad_ idea!" Molly snaps. "There's so many ways it could blow up in our faces, and even if --"

"And if he does _not_ do this thing, then Avantica will --" Caleb tries to talk over him, to _lecture_ him, but Molly is not having it.

"-- and even _if_ it works out just like you think, it's _still_ not worth it for Fjord to, to _bargain_ with himself like this for a woman who might try to kill us all tomorrow!" Molly rages. 

"Better tomorrow than tonight," Caleb says.

"It's really not!"

Caleb raises his voice a notch, the sharp edge baring a little more to Molly's ear. "Fjord is acting in the interests of the group, at no small cost to himself and frankly I think you could stand to be a little more supportive."

Molly sputters in outrage. "I _am_ being supportive, by encouraging him to _not_ stick his head into the meat grinder Avantica!"

Caleb glares at him. "Don't you think you're being a little hypocritical?" he says, and, Molly _can't_ have heard that right.

"Ex-fucking- _scuse_ me?!"

"Fjord is a grown ass man," Caleb says, and if the situation weren't so serious Molly would laugh at the sound of Caleb saying 'grown-ass' in his Zemnian accent -- but there is nothing funny about the situation. "And he is free to make his own decisions about where he sleeps and when, just as you are."

That smarts, because it's not the same, it's _not_ the same but Molly can't muster up the argument as to why. Caleb was always the better arguer, better at setting his words in order, at combining logic and rhetoric, and in the end Molly gives up because arguing with Caleb won't change anything. In that at least it's right: it's Fjord's decision, not theirs.

In the end Fjord does make his own decision. He goes off to the cabin with Avantica and Molly, still fuming, spends the rest of the night in the crow's nest. Caleb spends the night in their cabin alone, and maybe it's vindictive of Molly to hope he doesn't get any more sleep that night than Molly does.

The next night it's Molly's turn to sleep in the cabin alone; Caleb spends the entire night in the captain's cabin feverishly deciphering the journal Jester and Nott stole for them. Molly hovered in the doorway for a bit watching him, but found himself so overwhelmed by the magnitude of what Caleb is trying to do that he eventually retreats without saying anything.

Two nights without Caleb in his bed, a furnace of mess and magic by his side, and he's already feeling out of sorts. He just hopes that tomorrow, they'll get it all over with. Tomorrow, it'll all come to a head, and then it can start getting better.

* * *

Tomorrow, Caleb lights up the sky to keep his friends safe.

Tomorrow, Caleb twists out of Fjord's grip and takes off running faster than Molly ever thought possible; _like a bat out of Hell_ is all that goes through his mind as he watches him run. Holds his breath thinking _go, go, get out of here, they're all gunning for you --_

Tomorrow, the bolt from a crossbow takes him in the back at eighty paces and he goes down hard, leaving a smear of blood across the pavement as he tumbles and lies still.

Tomorrow, Caleb almost dies.

Fjord calls out his name in a voice Molly's never heard before but he's too far away to help, too many enemies between them, and he's already spent too many spells. It's up to Molly to pull on Summer's Dance to teleport past the guards, to run to Caleb across a distance that feels like all the boundless expanse of the sea. Each step seems to drag at his feet like running through soft sand, slosh around his thighs like heavy seawater, and he doesn't have Caleb's perfect timekeeping in his head but he counts _every beat_ of his heart until he can reach his side --

To find him still breathing, still bleeding sluggishly across the road, pulse beating shallowly in his neck and Molly is useless here, _worthless._ He's not Jester or Caduceus or even Yasha, no magical god-light leaks from his hands; he doesn't have Beau's skill at first aid or Nott's smarts telling him what to do. There is _nothing_ he can do except put his body in the way of any more crossbow bolts, to crouch over Caleb like a living shield as the furious Revelry guards pound up to them with blood in their eyes. (Literally blood, a moment later as Molly spits a maledict, snarls at them to _get your hands off him don't touch him --)_

Then Fjord is there and _he_ at least has a potion in hand, begs the guards in that strange voice to _help this man,_ and Caleb stirs and chokes and begins to wake up and Molly's heart starts beating again.

Caleb climbs painfully to his feet, staggers back towards the pitched battle on the ship, lets out a roar of fire that brings the whole battle to an explosive finale. Caleb's pain sings along Molly's veins in terrible sympathy, his stomach clenches out in agony as Caleb is tackled to the ground for a _second_ time and doesn't move, his muscles are gripped by a cold and paralyzing terror and his heart is a gaping chasm of _what will happen to him what if they kill him what if he dies what if I never get to see him or hear him or touch him again --_

He's fucked.

He's so fucked.

This isn't just concern for a teammate or a friend, or even a friend-with-benefits. This is more. This is so much worse.

He's fallen in love with Caleb Widogast.

* * *

Molly doesn't get another chance to talk to Caleb anytime soon. First they're being held awaiting trial, Caleb still half-dead in chains and the guards keeping too close an eye on them to allow more than a few words between them. Then there's the whole drama with the Plank King, and Molly wouldn't dare speak up and disturb the platinum grade bullshit that Beau is spinning. 

Less than a full day spent in Darktow and they're already banished from it, wallowing out of the harbor between the reefs escorted by several hard-eyed escort ships, and a great deal of the fun has gone out of piracy for Mollymauk.

Perhaps the Plank King meant their exile as a cruel form of delayed death sentence in itself; their ship is a burnt-out mess, they have no food and water, and even if they don't spring a leak and sink there's no way they can reach another port before they die of thirst.

If that's his plan, he underestimated them -- Jester and Caduceus, between them, keep the barge afloat by what seems like prayer alone. Caduceus calls on the same wave-shaping powers he used to capsize the enemy raider to keep the ship cruising along at a good rate; Jester's Mending slowly transforms the ship back into workable shape; and between the two of them they manage to produce enough food and water each day for every member of the crew to eat their fill.

Except for Caleb, who hasn't woken up since they left Darktow.

Not that he's lapsed into a coma or anything dramatic like that; he's just sleeping. Jester managed to close up all the wounds that Avantica's crew inflicted on him, but the blood loss couldn't be so quickly replenished, and he'd gone several days without sleep even before that. As if to make up for lost time he slept for twenty hours on the first day, woke up long enough to stagger to the head, clean the worst of the bloodstains off and bolt down some food before collapsing back into bed. It's been another twelve hours since then and he's still asleep. According to Nott, this is normal for him, at least as far as anything about Caleb is normal.

Molly's not standing vigil over his bedside. Of course not. The cabin is far too small and devoid of entertainments to spend thirty-six hours sitting in one place watching a man sleep. During the day he goes out on the deck and talks to the others; checks in on Fjord; helps with the sweeping and righting and repairing as best as he can; helps Caduceus with the cooking or spars with Beau. But as the day winds down he goes... well, then there's not many places on the ship he _can_ go since Caleb's fireball took out the crow's nest. 

Caleb can't seem to wake up, but Molly can't seem to fall asleep in the bed with him; he keeps obsessively having to sit up to check to see if Caleb is still breathing, to see if he's stirring, to see that he's all right. And having sat up he stays up, watching the last rays of sunset play over Caleb's hair spread out on the pillow.

Mollymauk Tealeaf is a professional peddler of A grade bullshit and his first sucker, this time around, was himself. For _weeks_ he's been falling deeper and deeper into a _feelings hole_ while telling himself the whole time that it was fine, that it was no more than physical, that he could break it off at any time. He was wrong, he's gone and fallen in _love_ and this is absolutely the worst thing that could have happened to him.

His soulmate is still out there.

His soulmate is still somewhere out there and Molly still means to find them, still _needs_ to find them, and he can't offer divided loyalties -- not to Caleb, and not to his soulmate. If this thing between them can't stay on the level of friends, then it has to end. Full stop.

He can only hope, miserably, that the whole feelings business is one-sided. That Caleb has had better sense than to give his heart away to a loudmouthed carnie he only met a few months ago. Caleb, ever the cautious one, the reasonable one, the one who rules by head and not by heart, surely he will have been smarter than that.

But one way or another, when Caleb wakes up, Molly will have to tell him the truth.

* * *

Sometime during the afternoon Molly dozes off. He doesn't mean to, but it seems like he blinks and night has fallen outside the window. He's sitting on the bed, slumped against the wall with his face against his chest and when he blinks his eyes open they meet Caleb's. 

Caleb is still tangled in the bedding with his hair spread over the pillow; there's a sheen of dried sweat over his skin from the fever he burned through in the night but his expression is relaxed, content. Molly left his hand open on top of the bedclothes and Caleb has linked his hand with Molly's. He looks up at Molly with the barest hint of a tiny smile playing over his face and says, _"Guten abend, Pfauchen."_

Oh. This is bad. This is bad bad bad because Molly knows what _love_ looks like, and he might not know Caleb but he should have recognized this ages ago if he weren't so deeply in denial. He'd hoped to cut the strings between them before Caleb fell too, but if the look on his face as he watches Molly sleep is any indication --

Panic fills him right up to the top of his head and he blurts out, before he can think better of it, "We need to break up."

Caleb's face goes blank, the soft expression just wiped away in an instant. He sits up in the bed, his hair still a rat's nest, and pulls his hand away. The loss of contact almost stings, leaves cold in its wake, and Molly reaches back for it for a moment before he forces his hand away. "What... why _now?"_

Molly takes a deep breath, words bubbling and bursting behind his tongue, all his carefully rehearsed _it's not you, it's me_ speeches popping and running down away from him. "Look -- Caleb, look -- I care about you a lot. You're a great friend and a great teammate and as smart as a whip and, and I only want the best for you, but -- look. _Listen._ It's about me, okay? It's not you. It's -- I'm a tiefling. And I don't know if you know, but one thing that's freaky about tieflings -- and aasimar too, but that's not really the point -- one thing about tieflings is that we have, magically or otherwise we have, well, soulmates."

"I know," Caleb says.

That stops Molly's babbling cold. "You -- you do?"

Caleb nods. "I have done a great deal of study about tieflings," he says, "and aasimar, in the past. More so when I started traveling with several of them. I wanted to know more about what I was getting into."

"Then..." Molly gestures over his shoulder, at his back, where no wings are sported. "Then you have to know that my soulmate -- isn't you."

"I'm aware," Caleb says, a bit of a dry clip to his voice. "I had no illusions about that, Mollymauk."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

Caleb shrugs. "I'm not a man who lets himself be ruled by superstitions about destiny and fate."

"Well -- I _am,"_ Molly says. "My soulmate's still out there, Caleb, and I'm ever going to find them, this -- you and me -- has to stop."

Molly can see the gears turning behind Caleb's eyes, sees him lick his lips and take a breath. "I... Molly we have talked about this, I would not hold you back from anyone else you wanted to be with --"

"I know!" Molly interrupts him, because Goddess, he can't let Caleb dangle that temptation in front of him. The idea that he could have _both,_ the man he loves and the person he was meant for, that there could possibly be enough of him to go around. 

And maybe Caleb _would,_ maybe he'd be content to share Molly with someone else and take only what he could get -- live on crumbs alone -- but the thought of that breaks Molly's heart even more than it's cracking now. Caleb deserves better than that, he deserves someone who loves him with all that they are, and he'll never get that so long as he's tied himself to Molly. "I know. But I can't -- I can't offer half a heart, Caleb. Not to my soulmate and not to you. It's got to be all or nothing."

Caleb is quiet for a minute. "So... it is nothing, then," he says at last.

Molly winces. "Listen, Caleb, I --" he starts, with no idea how he is going to finish that sentence. 

"I understand," Caleb interrupts him, mercifully.

"You do?"

"Yes," Caleb says. "It is your choice. It is always your choice."

"Well then... that's... good," Molly says, off-balance at the sudden lack of resistance, of pushback. "Right, that's good. We can still be friends, right? Of course we're still friends. Just not friends who fuck. Just --" he's panicking, panicking -- "Do you want to, you know, one last time? I could give you a blowjob, just as a sort of goodbye..."

"I don't think that would be a good idea," Caleb says.

"I -- right." Molly falters. "Of course you're right."

A sticky, awful silence falls between them. Molly desperately wants to fill it, but he can't think of anything to say.

"I will move out, of course," Caleb says at last. He shifts on the bed, pushing himself to his feet with a wobble.

"You don't have to --" Molly objects, but Caleb shakes his head.

"I would not put you out of your room," he says and his voice is so flat, his expression is so blank, and all of the softness and affection that was there when Molly woke up is just _gone,_ and it's _his fault_. "I'll change rooms with Caduceus."

He gathers up a few things -- so few things, just his books and his coat -- and walks out. Molly wants to chase after him, tell him he changed his mind, beg him to stay, but he doesn't.

He stays frozen in place for who knows how long ( _Caleb probably knows)_ with the noises of the ship to keep him company; the creak of the wood, the slosh of waves against the hull, the faint filtering of voices back to the room. Footsteps on the beam overhead, the voice of the night watchman, the low carrying baritone of Caduceus.

After a while the door opens and Caduceus pokes his head in, smiles a cheery smile. "Well!" he says. "Guess you and I are going to be roomies now, Mollymauk. You don't mind if I lay out my stuff on the floor here, do you? No offense, but I don't think there'll be enough room in the bed for both of us. It'd be pretty cramped."

It _had_ been cramped with just the two of them and Caduceus is right, he'll never fit, but the thought of having this huge empty enormous cold bed all to himself is what breaks Molly out of his paralysis, and he shoves past Caduceus as he bolts out of the cabin onto the deck. "Hey now," he hears the firbolg protest behind him, but he doesn't stop to answer.

The deck is mostly empty, just the lantern and the sailor on watch at the prow and he doesn't disturb Molly at all. He had the vague thought to climb up the mast but the crow's nest is still gone, there's nothing to put him up higher to the moon and the stars tonight. Catha is waning, her crescent barely visible behind thin high clouds that thicken even as he stares up at them, until he realizes that the fuzzy blur in his vision is tears.

It's funny, he thinks as he wipes at them ineffectually. This wasn't at all how he thought this would go. Usually in the ballads and plays it's the scorned lover who sobs as her true love denies her, when the rat bastard breaks an engagement or a promise or tells her he's found love elsewhere. If anything he'd thought that Caleb would be the one to cry and he'd have to do his best to soothe him so that they could both move on.

Instead Caleb is fine -- just fine -- and he's the one up here on the deck crying like a baby. And he can't even be mad at that, can't even think it's unfair that Caleb is handling this so calmly and rationally when he can't, because he knows it's all his fault.

 _Please come soon,_ he begs up to the sky, _whoever you are, my soulmate, please come and meet me soon. Please make all this worth it, please make all this mean something, please come and complete me so that I don't have to be so hollow any more._

There's no answer from the moon, from the stars. And it's all just salt water to the sea.

  
  


* * *

  
  


He stays up on the deck for a while. Waiting for an answer, maybe, or maybe hoping he won't have to go back to the room he used to share with Caleb. He can just live on the deck of the ship for the rest of the voyage, right? He's slept under the stars before. No biggie.

Of course, then it starts to rain.

Eventually he lets the cold rain drive him belowdecks, because as much as he is a dramatic bitch he doesn't _actually_ want to catch his death of cold. He'd have to explain it to Jester, among other things.

By the time he gets back to the cabin, the lights have been dimmed and Caduceus has made up his bed on the floor. His eyes are closed and he's letting off faint little snores, but as Molly tries to creep past him to get to the bed he opens his eyes, giving Molly a glimpse of what in this low lighting looks like pits of endless blackness. He freezes. Caduceus stares.

After a few seconds Caduceus closes his eyes again and snuggles back down into his bedding. In a voice blurry with sleep he says, "Sleep well with your bad decisions."

Molly absolutely does not.

* * *

The next few weeks seem to go by in a blur. Things happen. They go one place on the ocean, then another. Molly fights when they fight, and otherwise mostly keeps to himself, or clings to Yasha. He watches Caleb bleed himself out nearly to death at an altar with Fjord, intent on tying Fjord to him in a way that Fjord can't easily walk away from, and he hurts inside but he says nothing. It's not his place any more.

At the point of no return Fjord turns back and decides to not release his evil sea god after all. They return to the Menagerie Coast, they stop by Nicodranas again. Jester whisks Caleb away upstairs to have a talk with her mother that lasts hours, and when he comes back down Caleb looks a little lighter, his face less haunted. Molly wants to know what Marion said to him. If there are magic words that can fill the hollow spaces, tune down the pain. But it's not for him to ask.

They go to Felderwin, to Nott's old village and old house, and Molly realizes he knew less about his friends than he ever thought he knew. No wonder, no wonder she didn't like the idea of letting go of the past; hers was torn from her. She's raging drunk through most of the conversations that follow, all raw edges that lash out in every direction, that strike Caleb and draw _blood._

Caduceus goes to pick Caleb off the floor, to soothe him with soft words and brace him with wise encouragement. That should have been him, Molly wishes that were him, to tell Caleb that he's more than his past chiseled him into, that he believes in _second starts._

It's not his place. Not any more. Of all the things that hurts about this breakup, Molly wasn't expecting that to be the worst.

They're gathered on the bank of a sparkling blue river and Nott's just told her story of captivity and betrayal and torment, and Molly has never felt more kinship with her than today. But now it's Caleb's turn to speak and it's clear that he can't, that the words have deserted him, bottled back up in his throat and tied down there with misery and fear.

"Caleb," Jester says gently. "We can tell you're really scared, and that's okay, to be scared. We just don't know why."

"Maybe it'll ease your mind a bit, to share your fears with us?" Fjord suggests. 

Beau, even fucking _Beau_ puts a hand on Caleb's shoulder in support. "You got this, man," she encourages him.

Molly says nothing. He can't cross the distance to touch. It's like he's a ghost, trapped on the other side of the veil from the man he loves.

But it doesn't matter, because from somewhere or other Caleb plucks up his courage. He gets down on his knees in front of Nott, who wrings her hands a little as her eyes dart nervously around anywhere but at him. Caleb waits until finally, finally she lifts her chin and meets his gaze.

"Your name is Veth," he says.

"It -- was," she says, faltering a little. 

"My name," Caleb says, holding Nott's hands and looking steadily into her eyes, " -- before I met you, my name -- _was --_ Bren Aldric Ermendrud."

Molly's vision goes fuzzy except for on Caleb, standing out bright and sharp against a suddenly dull background. Caleb is speaking quietly but the words _reverberate_ in him, shaking his bones as though he were pounding them out on a three-foot-deep drum. _Bren Aldric ErmenBren Aldric Mendrud Bren Bren Bren --_

There's a tearing sound, like a thin veil has suddenly been ripped away, and Molly's wings burst to life out of his back.

  
  


* * *

**_~*VWOOP*~_ **

* * *

  
  


When listening to the songs and stories about tiefling and aasimar wings, Molly was never quite clear how much the process was supposed to hurt. The stories varied on that -- some versions seem to take a weird gleeful pleasure in describing the fountains of blood and gore that burst from the back when the wings come out for the first time. Why, he doesn't know -- sour feelings towards tieflings maybe, or the opinion that you can't get something wonderful without there being some horrible in to balance it. Or maybe some people just really like blood and gore.

Molly's ready for some amount of pain, always figured it would be worth it for getting his soulmate out of it in the end -- but in the event, it doesn't hurt at all. It feels _strange,_ the wild surge of heat in his back, feeling cramps in muscles and joints he didn't have a moment ago before he instinctively spreads them outwards. 

The tearing sound this time is _definitely_ cloth, as Molly's shirt signally fails to survive the sudden transformation of Molly's anatomy. One dim corner of his mind is just glad that he wasn't wearing his coat just then, but the rest of it is entirely subsumed by stunned shock.

The rest of the Nein crowd around him, shouting in varying flavors of excitement. Jester is the most vocal and she's practically dancing with happiness, shouting about how she always knew it, she _knew it!_ Yasha is no less happy than her, but quieter; Caduceus seems to be taking it all in stride. Beau is swearing a blue streak in astonishment and Fjord just looks lost and a bit panicked. Nott jumped and yelled at a scalded cat and now has her crossbow pulled at him, squinting suspiciously. But Molly only has eyes for one of them.

Caleb is stock still, in the same half-crouched position as he was a moment before, his hands still extended, but now he's looking back at Molly with the same expression of stunned astonishment that Molly himself feels. He can see the wheels clicking behind Caleb's eyes, and his own thoughts lag to catch up.

He swallows, unlocking his jaw from the petrified stasis it's been in since his world got turned upside down. He can feel little shivers starting to run up and down his body, the length of his wings, as he stands frozen and completely at a loss of where to go. "Bren," he said. "Your name. _Bren."_

"I suppose it is," Caleb says quietly, and he straightens up slowly from his crouch. He stands straight, and looks Molly straight in the eye. Actually gives a little half-bow, the cheeky bastard. "My name is Bren Aldric Ermendrud. It is nice to meet you, Mollymauk Tealeaf."

  
  


* * *

  
  


When he let himself daydream about what it would be like to have wings, he always vaguely imagined white. Vague visions of snow-white wings like a dove, or like the seabird he'd been named for. After meeting Yasha his daydreams had altered to consider the possibility that his wings might be black and skeletal instead. He _was_ a tiefling after all, and he had to consider the possibility that his fiendish heritage would inform the matter. Black wings would have been nice, too; appropriately demonic, but stylish and suave at the same time.

He was not expecting _this:_

Black at the base, but in the light glittering with a deep metallic green. Shimmering feathers overlap in long rows to form a trailing edge that sweeps down nearly to his feet. Further out from the origin on the wing the feathers transform to a riot of color: dark green becomes bright viridian, electric blue and teal, shading at the edges to metallic gold.

When he extends his wings -- which he does at first opportunity, of course, because everyone in the Nein wants to ooh and aah over them, and who is _he_ to deny them that splendor? -- the overlapping sheaves of feathers spread to reveal patterning in the feathers, looping whirlpools of blue and black intersected with bright vermilion spots that look like glowing red eyes.

They're hard to see from his point of view -- he gives himself a crick in the neck trying -- but Jester conjures up a pair of mirrors to let him view his new appendages in full. It looks as though his tattoos have come to life and sprung off his skin except richer and more vital, every image of himself that he ever _wanted_ to be made solid, made real.

He's spent years dreaming of this and the dreams were _nothing_ compared to the real thing, and Molly finds himself crying, just a little, for the sheer joy of it.

And as much as he enjoys showing off for his friends, there's one _specific_ person he needs to share this with above all. But Caleb went off to get away from the noise after a while, and Molly needs to extract himself from his crowd of admirers before he can follow him.

"I still don't think I understand it -- this whole soulmate business giving people wings? -- but, uh, congratulations!" Fjord is saying.

"Dude, do they work?" Beau is avidly interested. "Could you _fly_ with those things? Or, like, are you still too heavy and would crash?"

Molly shrugs, then has to fan his wings for balance as the gesture moves much more weight than he'd expected. "Only way to find out is to try, I suppose," he says. "But it'll have to wait."

He turns to try to step away from the group but Jester is there; she envelops him in a huge hug, pinning his pinions against his back as she lifts him a few inches from the ground. He laughs as she sets him back on the ground and says excitedly, "I knew that you and Caleb were meant to be! You're so lucky Molly, you found your soulmate!"

She's smiling as she says it but Molly can perceive the wistful edge to it, the envy that is too glad and free of malice to be jealousy. He puts his mouth next to her ear and says: "Look, if I can ride along with my soulmate for _months_ and not even know it just because of a twist of semantics, then _anything_ is possible. Who says fiction is stranger than truth?"

He gives him an affectionate kiss on the cheek, then leans back. Her smile grows a little warmer, and she backs away to let Caduceus loom in close. "This is a very strong sign from the gods, you know," the cleric says, smiling warmly as he clasps his hand on Molly's shoulder. "They meant for this to happen, even if it didn't necessarily have to happen like this."

"I... I guess so. Where's Caleb?" Molly says, backing up a step as Caduceus drops his arm. The rest of the Nein glance at each other, shrug, but Caduceus manages to point him in the right direction at least. Caleb has retreated back into the house, avoiding all the noise and clamor and risk of being clipped by a wing.

Molly starts off after him, only to find a serious-looking goblin barring his way. She looks him up and down, frowning, then drops her hands from her hips and sighs. "I can't say that I approve, but it's not up to me," she says. 

In a flash she's up in his face -- well, his personal space, but Nott has a way of getting in your face even from ground level. "You got a second chance. You'd better not squander this chance," she says fiercely, her yellow eyes boring into his.

Molly manages a return nod that is just as serious, giving her words the weight they deserve. "I won't," he says. "I promise."

Nott looks him over for a minute longer, then steps aside, apparently satisfied. Molly starts towards the exit, only to find himself with another dilemma.

His wings are too big to fit through the doorway.

"Yasha," he whimpers, and his dear friend is right by his side, silent and supportive. "Yasha help. How do I make them go away?"

  
  


* * *

  
  


After some practice -- and some, well, fairly deserved ribbing from the rest of the group, Molly finally manages to retract his wings into the strange other-space Yasha keeps hers when they're gone. He already misses them, although he knows he can get them back again as soon as there's a little more space.

But he can play with his new toys later. Right now he's got something else on his mind. 

Caleb's not far; he's holed up in the smallest room at the back of the house, Frumpkin on his neck, a book in hand. Molly knows him well enough to know that he's not really reading; the book is just to keep his hands and eyes busy, the cat is just to keep his emotions from spiraling out of control while he waits. He looks up when Molly comes in the doorway and puts the book down, snaps Frumpkin away. Molly is heartened; if Caleb didn't want to hear him out he would have kept the book up.

"So, Caleb..." Molly begins, then thinks better of it. "Or... should I call you Bren?"

"I ahh... I prefer 'Caleb' from you all." Caleb shifts uncomfortably, hands fidgeting between his knees. He looks up at Molly, then away. "But I understand that the name means a lot to you, so if you would rather..."

Molly shrugs. " 'Bren's done it's work. 'Caleb' it is," he says. "So, Caleb, can I sit?"

"Of course," Caleb says quietly. 

Molly sits. There's a moment of stillness between them, a quiet for once not awkward or painful. Molly's still trying to get his words in order to break the silence when Caleb stirs and breaks it for him. "I am sorry," he says softly.

Molly blinks. "What in the nine hells are _you_ sorry for?"

Caleb gives a little shrug. "I never meant to deceive you," he says, his voice pained. "I just never... thought that I truly could be the one you were looking for."

"Hey, I'm not mad at you for traveling under an alias." On an impulse Molly leans over to put a hand on Caleb's arm. Caleb's gaze snaps to the point of contact, but he doesn't pull away. "People change their names for all sorts of reasons, nobody's entitled to know anybody else's secrets."

"No, but I knew how important your soulmate was to you." Caleb shifts uncomfortably. "I should have... I don't know."

"Caleb -- really, truly, I don't mind," Molly says. "I'm just -- Goddess, I'm the one who should be apologizing."

" _Wa_ \-- why?" Caleb sits up straight. "You have done nothing wrong!"

"I did though," Molly admits painfully. "I treated you like shit and I feel pretty awful about it. I'm sorry."

 _Now_ the silence is awkward, Caleb leaning left and right as though Molly's words are a physical pressure on him. "...It's alright," he says at last, and it's an obvious get-out-of-apology-free card and Molly has no intention of taking it.

"It's _not_ , though." Molly rushes forward. "I was so fixated on finding some mystical perfect partner that I ignored that I already had him right in front of me. I convinced myself for months that I didn't love you because I was afraid. I did stupid shit, went looking for other partners I didn't even want because I was trying so hard to believe that I wasn't head over heels for you. And you didn't say a word!"

He stops there before he can break down into accusation, _why didn't you say anything, why didn't you stop me, why did you let me treat you like that._ He might wish Caleb _had_ spoken up at the time, but he doesn't want to make what happened into Caleb's fault for not finding some way to make Molly behave better.

Caleb swallows visibly. "I... I was certain that you wanting to be with me was a fluke, an aberration," he says, his voice barely audible. "You were -- you _are_ so beautiful, and I am -- a wreck of a man. I always knew that sooner or later you would get tired of me and move on. Either when you found someone who was a better match for you, or when... you found out what kind of person I really am. I didn't want to say or do anything that would force you to make that decision."

Molly shakes his head. "Living in fear, that's no kind of relationship," he says, like he knows anything at all about relationships.

"I know," Caleb says. "I just did not want to be the anchor that chained you."

"Well, I've found out more about who you really are now, and it only makes me like you more," Molly says firmly. "So there."

"Mollymauk, I --"

Molly reaches down and takes Caleb's hand, squeezing it firmly enough to retrieve his attention. "Y'know Caleb, just because I don't usually root around in other people's issues doesn't mean I'm not aware of them," he says. "The next sentence out of your mouth was going to be some combination of 'deserve' and 'don't,' am I right?"

Caleb doesn't finish the sentence. Which, well, pretty much answers the question. 

"Well, I can't tell you what to feel or not feel, even if I hate it and think it sucks, so I'll just say this instead," he says firmly. "The gods, or fate, or magic itself or _whatever_ decided that you and me would make a _great_ pair, so for the time being, I'm going to trust their judgment over yours. All right?"

Caleb considers this for a long moment, then slowly nods. "All right," he says softly. "Let's see where it goes."

Mollymauk relaxes. The hard part of the talk is over, and now they can get to the rewards. "Well?" he says.

"Well what?"

Molly grins and leans forward, tail swaying in the air behind him as he nearly tips off the edge of the seat into Caleb's lap. "Are you going to kiss me already?" he says.

And he does.

  
  


* * *

**the end.**

  
  


* * *

_(and one more)._

  
  
  


As exciting as this all has been -- fatebound wings and destined lovers and dramatic makeups and all -- they _are_ kind of in the middle of something else. Nott's _husband_ is _missing,_ as she misses no opportunity to remind them all, and it looks like they're committed to pursuing him through the fuckoff huge tunnel under the earth all the way to Xhorhas.

Personally Molly's not a huge fan of the tunnel part of this. He's never liked being underground, although at least the tunnel looks to be huge enough that there'll be plenty of breeze. And he'll have his friends around him, Jester and Beau to distract him and Caduceus and Yasha to help him and more than anything else, Caleb.

Honestly, it's a little embarrassing just how preoccupied he is by Caleb right now. They're back in Felderwin, temporarily -- one last night at Bryce's place before they depart for Xhorhas in the morning -- and so far Molly and Caleb have spent the entire time wrapped up in one another. Molly can't help it; he still can't believe his luck. That Caleb would turn out to be his soulmate, that Caleb would love him and forgive him and take him _back,_ even after all his fuckups. That the two of them would click together so very easily that they can share one armchair, sides pressed together in a solid line with no space between, and it feels perfectly right. He's got his wings back out -- every opportunity, really -- and draped over Caleb's lap as the wizard pets his feathers like he would Frumpkin's fur. It feels _incredible._

Beau, at least, is enormously unimpressed with their new closeness, and in typical Beau fashion doesn't let them forget it. "Fuckin' _hell,_ are you two going to be playing footsie all the way to Xhorhas?" she demands.

"It has been less than a day, Beauregard," Caleb murmurs. His eyes are half-closed, he seems almost in a hypnotic state as he runs his fingers over Molly's pinion feathers over and over again. "Give us a grace period at least."

"Yeah no, you got your grace period the _first_ time Molly tripped and fell on Caleb's cock way back in Zadash," Beauregard returns. "And I thought that was bad enough then, all the pining and goo-goo eyes and shit. Give it a _rest,_ man."

"Jealous?" Molly inquires sweetly. "You could try caring for someone for a change, Beau. It might sweeten your disposition."

Beau scowls and flips him off; unfairly Molly can't return the gesture, as both of his hands are pinned down by Caleb. But he doesn't really mind; he's too mellow and too distracted to give his usual banter with Beau any real attention.

A knock on the door intrudes on the scene, gathering raised eyebrows and confused looks from all present. "We weren't expectin' anyone, were we?" Fjord asks.

Molly shrugs. The knock comes again. "Somebody get the door!" Jester yells from the next room, where she and Nott have busied themselves with something very secretive and likely highly explosive. Fjord glances around and -- seeing that neither Caleb nor Molly are likely to move anytime soon, and Beau is lounging on the couch with aggressive indifference -- sighs and goes to meet the door.

No angry voices greet the door at least, only the murmur of an unfamiliar voice. After a minute Fjord comes back leading a plump, androgynous-looking halfling in a uniform and brimmed cap, carrying a broad flat package in their hands. "Parcel here for Miss Lionett?" the courier says.

Beau sits up straight. "What the shit?" she grumbles. "That had better not be from Kamordah. How'd they even know?"

"Uh, you might be mistaken," Fjord tells the courier. "Don't think we have a Miss Lionett here."

"Sure we do," Beau says. "It's me."

Fjord blinks in astonishment. "It is?"

Honestly, Molly can sympathize with his surprise; they've been traveling with Beau for months now and she's been tight as a clam on _any_ kind of personal details. "Are you telling me you actually have a name and not just a grunt?" he teases.

Beau scowls and holds her hand out for the parcel. "Just give it here and get it over with," she grumbles. 

The courier resists, hanging on to the package. "I have to verify the identity of the recipient," they protest. "Are you Miss Beauregard Lionett?"

Beau raises her voice as she grabs for it, aggravation clear in her tone. "Yeah, I'm Beauregard Lionett!" she calls out, loud enough to be heard in the next room over.

And in the next room over comes a shriek, a crash, and the _VWOOP_ of a wildly expanding set of wings.

* * *

the end ( **really**.)

**Author's Note:**

> On the topic of names.
> 
> Names are important, and the changing of names is important. D&D certainly would seem to agree, given that they just released an entire arcane college based around the power inherent in the True Name (already explored somewhat in lore surrounding demons, devils and fey.) But it does beg the question of who, or *what,* decides exactly what the True Name is going to be. Is it decided by parents, once and forever? Decided by the individual on reaching their majority? Decided as part of a magical and ritual ceremony presided by community elders? Decided by the gods, the fates, the gamedevs, the DM? There doesn't seem to be any one single answer.
> 
> In the real world, the civil practice is to respect an individual's choice of name over any other party's. But then again even in the real world, a person's reasons for leaving behind a name can vary. Some people change their name because they no longer consider themselves the person they used to be, and that name is dead. Some people change their name because they undergo a voluntary change of life status: get married, or divorced, or adopted, or emancipated. Some people change their name as part of a public persona or creative career. Some people change their name because they're in hiding, or a witness protection program. Some people change their name because they're moving to a new country or society where their old name will no longer be welcome. Some people have their names changed unwillingly, forced to do so by some other party asserting control over them.
> 
> The characters in Critical Role have gone through a number of these transitions. Mollymauk made it clear that the name of Lucien was dead to him. Nott changed her name because she was kidnapped from her own society and forced into a persona that was abhorrent to her. Jester's name may well have been adopted when she started her role as the Traveler's herald of pranks and chaos.
> 
> Caleb's relationship with his old name is painful and filled with a weight of history and guilt. But though he chooses to continue to go by Caleb with the Nein, I think it's clear that the name his parents gave him still means a lot to him. By D&D standards, where a True Name is a secret held with a great deal of spiritual and arcane weight, I don't feel it is disrespectful to anyone involved to hold that Bren Aldric Ermendrud continues to be his True Name.


End file.
